Verizon vs Att vs Sprint

[r0k]

I was at a meeting Sunday in a lower level meeting room. There were about 40 people present. A question came up that required a phone call. Out came an iphone. No signal. Out came a Sprint phone. It appeared to have several bars but in the end placing the call failed. Then another Att phone tried and failed. I quietly kept my Verizon BB 8830 in my pocket as long as I could. As it became apparent the debate could move no further without the missing data, I reluctantly pulled out my phone, dialed the number and handed it to the person having the difficulty. In two minutes he had his answer and our meeting could move on to another topic.

As far as I was concerned this settled any question in my mind about the merits of Att vs Sprint vs Verizon in my neighborhood. If it works when you need it, it's worth it. If it fails, you gotta ask yourself why you put up with it.

I should note that when I first pulled my phone out, it showed 0 bars. Later, I pulled it out and it showed 2 bars. Perhaps the signal was fluctuating and I happened to make the call during the "lucky time" but my experience supports the impression that there is a lot more "lucky time" on Verizon than any other carrier.

[questionfear]

From what I've heard, Blackberries also have incredible RF antennas, so when they find a signal they hang on like a hungry alligator.

Nokia is the same way. I've seem my E71x drop to zero bars but still pull down emails and make phone calls. It's like it finds the last sliver of signal and just hangs on tight.

[r0k]

I've heard that as well, qf. What I need is to be down in that meeting room with somebody with a Sprint Tour, an Att Bold and my 8830. Then we'll see... Of course, Verizon has that "paperweight mode" commercial about Blackberries on other networks versus Verizon. But I think there's more truth to Verizon's ads than to the Att "more bars in more places" ads. Besides, who cares about number of bars if the call fails? It's just gotta work regardless of what's on the display.

Of the other phones I was up against yesterday, the only one I recognized was the iPhone. The others were various "flip phone" feature phones. I have similar experience at work. My Verizon BB works in the elevators but Sprint and Att 'berries do not.

Some years ago, I had a Nokia phone on Att's old network, the one they handed down to MetroPCS. I dropped calls all the time and I was so happy to move over to Verizon once I realized how good the coverage was relative to the Att and Nextel phones I had been used to. What really annoyed me was the random delivery of missed calls and sms. Sometimes my sms messages were in limbo for 12 hours or more. I see some random delay of sms on Verizon but it is measured in minutes not hours.

I wish one of the review sites would invest in some RF test equipment so we could see side by side comparisons of phone performance in terms of dbuv of signal strength. Another thing I'd like to see is animated "weather maps" of cell phone signal strength for my area. The reason this area is so subjective is the data is not being presented to the end users in an organized fashion. The cell carriers all know where their dead spots are, they just don't want to share them with us.

[questionfear]

Interesting. Maybe you can offer $10/person to anyone with a Sprint Tour, an AT&T Bold, and a T-Mobile BBerry...and you stand in that basement with them and report back on the results! It's like a scientifical study!

I'm glad we are discussing VZW, as it ties in with my current dilemma: I found out I get 21% service at VZW, vs 13% off at AT&T. From what I can see the rates are identitical. Is VZW really THAT bad at locking down their smartphones, and is the 21% savings worth breaking my AT&T contract?

I know if I find out I will be doing lots of meetings in basements in Michigan the answer is yes...

[jigwashere]

I used to suffer through poor reception until about 2 years ago. I think call quality in general has improved. I have Sprint and have had perfect call reception every where I travel - until last week. I was in the waiting room of my Dr. office and couldn't get through to work. It was very frustrating. Fortunately, that's the only time in over 2 years with problems. I've travelled to Chicago, Florida, ND, Iowa, Wisconsin, Manitoba. No problems at all.

[RickAgresta]

Interesting. Maybe you can offer $10/person to anyone with a Sprint Tour, an AT&T Bold, and a T-Mobile BBerry...and you stand in that basement with them and report back on the results! It's like a scientifical study!

I'm glad we are discussing VZW, as it ties in with my current dilemma: I found out I get 21% service at VZW, vs 13% off at AT&T. From what I can see the rates are identitical. Is VZW really THAT bad at locking down their smartphones, and is the 21% savings worth breaking my AT&T contract?

I know if I find out I will be doing lots of meetings in basements in Michigan the answer is yes...

they have been in the past, but that seems to be changing, albeit slowly. there now are at least a few VZW smartphones with Wifi enabled, and at least 1 with built-in GPS enabled. still don't know what, if any, progress has been made with a non-crippled Bluetooth stack.

[brickman65]

Assuming signal strength is equal, doesn't CMDA penetrate buildings better than GSM? I thought I read that somewhere.

[r0k]

Verizon literally euthanized the 755p and the Centro. They took so darn long to release the 755p, the Centro was already available. When they did release it, they butchered it badly. The software was every bit as unstable as the 700p which they also ruined. So mere 6 weeks after I got my 755p, the Centro was available. It had more memory and didn't require that archaic mini-sd card. I was in a quandry. I had solved my stability problems if I was willing to walk around without email. If I enabled any email software, my phone became useless. I had upwards of 75 pairing incidents with my car bluetooth kit. Sometimes calls would get handed back to my handset while I was in the middle of a sentence and driving down the road. So I approached Verizon and the rep offered to pay my exit fee to go to Sprint if they couldn't fix my 755p. A few more months went by. I paid for snappermail. I paid for chattermail. I even forked over $45 a month for Verizon's "wireless sync" which included "pushish" email but was the least stable thing I have ever run on any OS. I slugged it out and slogged through a miserable smartphone experience. I should not have listened to folks at Brighthand who warned me away from Blackberry in late 2007. I should have taken more time with Blackberry before I gave up on it the first time and I would have probably never even considered 755p and would be going on my third year with an 8830. After the suffering I had endured at the hands of Palm/Verizon, I decided to make the jump for real. No safety net. I ordered a BB 8830 on ebay and at the same time put my 755p and 650 up for auction. When my BB arrived, it worked flawlessly. It has worked flawlessly ever since. Why oh why did I wait so long?

Does this mean BB was inherently superior to Palm at the time? Yes and no.

Yes because I have true multitasking. Yes because a year after I got my phone used, I got a new OS from RIM/Verizon and I picked up docs2go and a better email reader and browser with no out of pocket cost.

But the answer could still be no. Verizon offers roughly 12 Blackberry models. It is their flagship line of phones. They are very careful not to eff-up these phones.

Verizon's Blackberry phones are primarily targeted at business users. Many of these business users are at the C-level and they can pick up a phone and terminate a corporate contract covering 15,000 or more phones.

On the other hand, Palm users are average grunts who can pick up the phone and scream and yell at customer service. Big whoop. For this reason, Verizon walked softly over BB OS while they raped and pillaged Palm OS.

I'm concerned about the Pre or EOS when it comes to Verizon. Historical evidence lets me to believe Verizon will be more focused on making sure the Verizon app store is the only one pre-loaded, and they will be making sure VZW navigator is the only GPS thing that works, and in the process they will very likely tear webOS a new rear end rather than let users like me enjoy a trouble free smartphone experience. The only positive here is that webOS is linux based and any "crippling" should not destabilize the phone as much as the same crippling destabilized an older OS like Garnet.

Given my high regard for Verizon's network, I find my future smartphone decision heavily influenced by a total equation including not only the phone and its OS but also the track record of the carrier supporting the OS.

Verizon and BB OS is about as good a combination as Att and iPhone OS. So Tour and Storm 2 are at the top of my list for next phones. The Pre and a Verizon version of the iPhone (if it ever comes along) are a little further down the list even if I like certain OS features of the latter 2 models. I'm not interested in a WinMo model, but if I was there are several choices on Verizon some of which even have wifi. So by sticking with Verizon, I get 2 out of the 3 best OS available for smartphone: WinMo and BB. I would call iPhone OS one of the top 3 smartphone OS and I leave Android and webOS in the "promising but unproven" category for now. I leave Symbian and Maemo in the interesting but not relevant in North America category right now.

In my mind the top 2 are OS X and BB OS. It's a shame I can't get them both on every carrier. I hope the FCC breaks up this exclusivity thing. It's more likely that 4G will roll out before FCC figures out a viable regulatory policy and we will be able to get any phone on any carrier for technological rather than legal reasons.

[Varjak]

r0k and others, I don't think your experience is limited to the BB for Verizon. It IS the network. I've been in MANY similar situations with a crappy, old Motorola phone and have gotten reception when others (including BB's) did not. I was up flyfishing in the Catskills and we were trying to meet up with friends in the parking lot of a grocery store. I was the only one who got a signal to another VZ customer. This has happened over and over. I'm not one to blindly believe everything I've read; but when survey after survey shows that Verizon tops the charts in just about every region, one has to take some notice.

I think one of 2 things could happen. As all US carriers converge on LTE, the determining factor would be number and dispersion of towers (probably favoring Verizon), which means a status quo (although maybe a laggard sharply cuts prices to compete). Or the other companies could build up their networks and then with all technologies largely the same (and presumably more unlocked phones made for LTE); another price competition breaks out.

[Adama D. Brown]

For what it's worth, I was recently hanging out in a hotel bar with a friend while he tried to make a call. We were both on AT&T, but his iPhone had "no service" while my Samsung Jack had one to three bars. The phone can really make all the difference.